“…In the context of innovations, we should also expect a negative correlation with age, because the literature about age-dependent skill formation suggests that age has a negative effect on human capital investments (e.g., due to decreasing amortization periods) and on cognitive skills such as intelligence, memory power, reasoning, creativity, and fluid problem-solving skills (e.g., Kaufman 2001;Pfeiffer and Reuß 2008), which are important for innovative activities. Previous studies, which use firm level data, find indeed that (old) age has a negative effect on firms' innovation activities (e.g., product and process innovations, patents) (e.g., Schneider 2008 for Germany, Parrotta et al 2012 for Denmark). The demographic change makes it also necessary to activate female labor supply.…”